Fukushima's deserted towns – in pictures

In 2011 a massive earthquake and tsunami wrecked the Fukushima nuclear plant, resulting in a meltdown that became the world's worst atomic crisis in 25 years. About 160,000 people living near the plant were ordered to move out and the government established a 12-mile compulsory evacuation zone

The beach in the evacuated town of Namie is littered with tsunami barriers, wrecked cars and other debris. Almost all of the beaches in Fukushima prefecture have remained closed since the disaster. In July this year, Tokyo Electric Power, which runs the crippled Daiichi plant, admitted that hundreds of tonnes of groundwater mixed with radioactive material may be flowing out to the sea each day

A relative of Yotsuno Kanno uses chopsticks to put her remains into a family grave at a cemetery in the evacuated town of Minamitsushima. Kanno died in temporary accommodation in May 2013, two weeks short of her 100th birthday

A woman paying a brief visit to her home walks under a sign reading 'Nuclear power – the energy for a better future', at the entrance of the empty Futaba town. Decades ago the citizens ofFutaba took such pride in hosting part of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex that they built a sign over a promenade proclaiming that atomic power made their town prosperous

A vendor offers fish for sale at a market in Iwaki. Before the disaster, more than half of fish offered at the market was from local fishermen, but now none of it comes from the Fukushima prefecture. Commercial fishing has been banned near the nuclear complex, and the only fishing that takes place is for contamination research, carried out by small-scale fishermen contracted by the government

Keigo Sakamoto, 58, holds Atom, one of the 21 dogs and more than 500 animals he keeps at his home in the exclusion zone near Naraha. Sakamoto, a former caregiver and farmer who refused to leave the exclusion zone, named his dog Atom because it was born just before the 2011 disaster. With donations and support from outside Fukushima, Sakamoto lives with his animals, many of which were abandoned by previous owners as they fled the area

Mieko Okubo, 59, poses with a portrait of her father-in-law, Fumio Okubo, next to his jacket in the room where he killed himself. Fumio, a 102-year-old farmer, hanged himself in the house in Iitate where he had lived in all his life after authorities ordered an evacuation of the area. Mieko, who lives outside the exclusion zone, comes back every other day to feed Fumio's dog and clean the house

Naoto Matsumura, 53, poses for pictures in an empty street in the evacuated town of Tomioka. Despite government orders, Matsumura never left and now lives alone inside of the nuclear exclusion zone with his 50 cows, two cats, a dog, a horse and two ostriches. He has made it his mission to take care of those animals left behind, even if they no longer can be sold to a market due to their exposure to high levels of nuclear radiation